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Our new governor has appointed Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti as the new Transportation Commissioner.

He is also cleaning house at NJT. Santoro is leaving as executive director, but no announcement so far of who will replace him. Plus some other high-level people are being asked to ride into the commuter sunset, but names haven't been released yet.

Anyone who follows NJ stuff know more about this than the papers (and I) do?

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No names (officially) released yet except for Santoro, but local news says about 20 high-level NJT employees have been asked to resign, especially people Christie had given those jobs to--no surprise there. What happens if the new gov. cleans house and doesn't immediately replace anyone? (NJT might run better? )

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But it isnt. Most of the people are not political hacks. I know a bunch of them personally and they are, with one exception, among the better people there. This is something of a puzzlement and also a disaster.

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Chris Christie needs a job, and he has experience with bridges and traffic between Jersey and New York!

I didn't keep track of what happened to whom after Superstorm Sandy. After they looked at the flood maps and said, "Lots of space down here to park the trains," I'd have sacked them all, from Christie right down thru the management ranks at Jersey Transit. They made NY look good.

For day in, day out, I'll give the MTA a solid B. I mean, terrible in a thousand ways, but it runs 24/365 and carries millions and millions. For Superstorm Sandy, I'd grade the MTA with an A-. They could have done better, sure, but they deserve a better grade for performance in the crisis. No NY trains drowned.

I don't know Jersey Transit well enuff to give a regular day in, day out grade. But in the crisis they earned a solid F. Take it back, no human fatalities. So for its Superstorm Sandy crisis performance, NJT earned a D-.

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Talking of worse, I have a good example of the sort of thing that needs fixing at NJT.

I was on my way home the other day. I got to PJC just as the train pulled in--I thought how rare is that? And got to TRE and the light rail was there with a perfect connection! I was looking forward to one of the smoothest NJT trips ever, when:

We got out of TRE, and very soon (before the next station), the train came to a sudden and rough stop. It turned out that the brakes weren't working properly. We then sat in the train for an hour and a half while they tried to figure out what was wrong with the brakes and fix them, while three other trains (which we could have been transferred to--they were all half empty) went right by us. We (the passengers) all thought of doing this immediately.

After an hour and a half, they told us that they couldn't fix the problem so were transferring us to another train after all. They then got the northbound train to stop, and we transferred to that to take us back to TRE and start again from there. However, the drop from the train to the ground was pretty steep, but there was no step stool (even Amtrak, in spite of its muddle headedness sometimes, knows to put down that yellow step stool).

I did not want to jump down that far and take a chance on twisting an ankle or worse, so I ended up sitting down on the floor of the first train so I could be closer to the ground, jumping down, then turning around and sitting on the floor of the new train and pulling myself up.

After that experience, it seems to me that NJT does okay (not well, but okay) when things are normal. However, anything out of the ordinary throws them completely. Apparently they are not allowed to use common sense.

There was one nice surprise: I always think of NJT commuters as grumpy, but everyone was still in good humor by the end, and we had actually formed new friendships! When we got on the new train, the automatic tape said, "Thank you for riding the RiverLine," and we all burst out laughing.

Edited January 18 by Mystic River Dragon

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I once sat across a table from former (then current) executive director Jim Weinstein and asked him, "Have you considered setting up your busses and trains so that they connect and complement each other?"

I was expecting him to be offended by the question. My tone was a bit acidic, and my comments in that meeting (there were about 20 other people there from the LC) had been direct and pointed and certainly not friendly. So I wasn't expecting a totally friendly response. But what he did respond with, you could have knocked me over with a feather- a completely dumbfounded look came over his face, and he said, I swear to god, "Huh?"

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I wonder if that means that he'll have people that actually understand railroading and public transportation looking at it or will it be more people with personal vehicles and plans performing budget cutting.

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NJT was deeply infiltrated by PB and Christie goons. But I cant imagine Murphy not wanting to continue the generally lucrative relationship with PB or Bombardier. The people he has installed seem unqualified to me, but we will see.

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Thanks, jis. I'm sure your answer is correct, but I like AmtrakBlue's better!

And now for an update: New Jersey's Governor Murphy (still sounds odd saying that!) has nominated Kevin S. Corbett to be the executive director of NJT. He seems to have transportation and infrastructure experience. However, he is a graduate of Georgetown University and was a fellow at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, which is a more intellectual choice than i expected.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? Or anyone know of him? (I checked Wikipedia, but he's not there.) I think it's an interesting change and am looking forward to seeing what happens.